UP couple builds homestay with plastic
DEHRADUN: Giving the message of using plastic in a constructive manner in mountains, a couple from Uttar Pradesh built a homestay made of plastic bottles in Hartola village in Nainital district. Over 26,000 bottles were used to make the four-room homestay.
Deepti Sharma, a schoolteacher in Meerut, who also loves travelling, built the house along with her husband as they wanted to give a message of using plastic in a better way in the mountains, instead of making the Himalayas a dumping ground for plastic.
“We travel a lot to the mountains and every time we go to a place, we are disappointed to see the amount of plastic waste that is generated in the mountains without any scope of recycling or proper disposal. That is when it struck us that we wanted to do something using plastic. We believe that either people should recycle plastic or take back the waste generated,” said Sharma.
The couple now wants to approach locals and officials to spread the word about how plastic can be used to build houses, or shops, once the house gets registered.
“We are in the process of registering the homestay and it should be done in another month’s time. Once that is done, we will be pitching this idea to officials,” said Abhishek Anand, co-owner of the house who also handles the bookings for the homestay.
“We used plastic bottles to build patches of walls which were then joined together to make a whole wall. For one patch of wall, 100 bottles were tied together and then covered with a mesh wire to keep it intact. Apart from plastic, we used old tyres for the flooring and stairs,” added Sharma. The place has four different rooms of 10X11 feet. Anand said, “We started building the house in February 2017 and it took us almost one and half years to complete. He said that it cost them ~1.5 lakh to build the house, including labour cost and raw materials.
Indrish Gupta, who visited the homestay this July said, “The homestay is at an excellent location, completely away from the pollution of Delhi. The beauty of this place cannot be explained in words.”